A Humorous Look at Unethical Business Practices: A Lesson from Junior Achievement

In the world of business, we often find ourselves navigating a maze of ethical dilemmas, and sometimes—not so proud moments—emerge from these experiences. I recently reminisced about a memorable encounter from my early career that perfectly illustrates this point, and I am eager to share it with you.

A few years ago, a group of my colleagues and I, all associates in our second and third years, decided to mentor a team for Junior Achievement. This initiative required the students to conceptualize, establish, and operate a small business over a few months. Our team chose to sell fruit baskets, an idea that seemed both practical and appealing. We planned to procure bulk fruit and baskets, assemble them, and deliver the end products to local households.

However, we quickly stumbled upon a significant hurdle: Junior Achievement had some unconventional rules in place. One of the most challenging stipulations was the outright prohibition against taking on debt. While this rule was undoubtedly designed to protect the organization, it created a paradox that complicated our business model. How could we procure fresh fruit to fill our baskets without the necessary funds, and moreover, how could we generate those funds without incurring liabilities?

As you might have guessed, our solution had an air of unintended impropriety. To navigate this red tape, we decided to require our customers to prepay for their fruit baskets. This allowed us to collect payments upfront before delivering the baskets a couple of weeks later. From a pragmatic standpoint, this strategy was effective, but here’s where things became a bit more dubious.

As part of our obligations, we had to prepare weekly financial reports to submit to the Junior Achievement office for review. If we documented our cash collections and deferred revenue accurately, we knew it wouldn’t sit well with the administrators. Yet, maintaining accurate records was crucial for us to track who had paid and to ensure we fulfilled our delivery obligations.

Without any malicious intent, we ended up maintaining two sets of financial records. The first set was our “real” books, used to manage our operations internally, while the second set was crafted strictly for submission to the Junior Achievement office to adhere to their guidelines. Surprisingly, we had even involved the students we were coaching in this process, creating a unique learning opportunity, albeit misaligned with the ethical framework we were supposed to uphold.

Weeks went by, and during a casual conversation, we collectively realized, “Wow, we’re actually